Autor: Flanagan, Josef

Buch: Quest for Self-Knowledge

Titel: Quest for Self-Knowledge

Stichwort: Definition: Bewusstsein; Bewusstsein und Erfahrung als erste Art eines Wissens; 3 Weisen des Bewusstseins; innere- äußere Erfahrung; undifferenzierte Einheit

Kurzinhalt: Consciousness is a quality that is intrinsic to certain acts and to certain types of things. Could we say that consciousness is a way of knowing? Yes, but ...

Textausschnitt: 46/5 Consciousness is a quality that is intrinsic to certain acts and to certain types of things. Could we say that consciousness is a way of knowing? Yes, but it is only a preliminary and very undifferentiated way. For this reason we can also consider that the word 'experience' shares the same meaning as 'consciousness.' To experience the world around you is to be aware or conscious of it, but this is a vague, undifferentiated, preliminary way of knowing. Is consciousness or experience an inward or outward awareness? It is both, since you only become aware of this distinction as you shift attention from outer to inner experiences, or the reverse. Through attentive or selective awareness, the distinction between inner and outer fields of awareness becomes differentiated, but before such selection the inner/outer distinction is not clear and distinct. Clarity and distinctness come from intellectual awareness, not from awareness. There are, therefore, different types of consciousness, awareness, or experience. (132; Fs)

47/5 I defined consciousness as an awareness imminent in certain acts and in the subject of those acts. Just as there are three different levels of knowing, constituted through three different sets of activities, there are three different ways of being conscious: empirically, intelligently, and rationally or reflectively. Besides these different types of consciousness associated with the different levels of knowing, there is the more obvious unity or oneness of consciousness. I say 'more obvious' because you are more easily conscious of yourself in the undifferentiated unity of the self than you are of the three distinct levels of your consciousness. Only after a good deal of self-appropriation of the different levels of knowing are you able to distinguish these three different types of consciousness within the unity that is referred to as me or I. Besides the three different types of consciousness and the unity of the subject, there is a further and more complex aspect of consciousness: the problem of inner and outer awareness. This needs to be carefully scrutinized since it is the source of considerable confusion about the way we know. (132f; Fs)